


A Child's Illustrated Treasury of Regeneration Trauma (The Doctor Who Discovers Edition)

by biichan



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, Remix, Rites of Passage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-02
Updated: 2010-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-09 06:29:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biichan/pseuds/biichan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regeneration is a deadly serious business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Child's Illustrated Treasury of Regeneration Trauma (The Doctor Who Discovers Edition)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PencilGuardian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PencilGuardian/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Discourse on the Medical Risks of Regeneration](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/581) by PencilGuardian. 



> Many thanks to Madelf for beta-reading in the clutch and attempting to restrain my urge to wantonly italicize.

"'Regeneration,'" she read out loud, "'is a deadly serious business.'"

"And you have a dreadful habit of reading over people's shoulders," said the Doctor. "Go bother K9, there's a good girl."

"He's recharging himself at the console," Romana said airily, reaching across the Doctor's desk to pluck the top paper from the disorganized stack behind the inkwell.

"I'm trying to write here—did I say you could look at that?" The Doctor made to snatch the paper out of Romana's hand.

"Did you really draw this by _hand_?" She pursed her lips. "How primitive."

"I thought it was charming," said the Doctor. He eyed her thoughtfully. "I'd have thought your tutor might have instilled a sense of art appreciation in you."

"Tutor Ushas? She was much more interested in berating me for not specializing in one of the hard sciences."

"Not her—oh, never mind." The Doctor sighed. "I'll take you to Paris once we've properly shook the Black Guardian from our trail."

Romana nodded distractedly. "I've seen this before," she said, frowning as she studied the paper in her hand. "I know I have. At the Academy."

"Sealed behind glass in the courtyard of the Hall of Medicine?"

She looked up at him, surprised, then nodded. "My cousin Rodan called him The Man In Flux. She said..."

"...he was trapped in the transformative phase of his regenerative cycle for all eternity?" the Doctor finished. He grinned at her. "My older brother told me the same thing. He's only a hologram, though."

Romana's cheeks were flushed. "I knew that," she said.

The Doctor _looked_ at her.

"I _did_," she insisted. "It was on the plaque."

He laughed out loud. "I suppose you would be the type to actually read those things."

"Hmph."

The Doctor shrugged. "I'm writing," he said after a long moment, "a book about regeneration for Time Tots."

Romana raised an eyebrow. "Why ever for? I doubt many of them will need to know. Not unless they're leading a particularly dangerous infancy."

"Because," said the Doctor, "regeneration is a deceptively difficult process and it's never too early to be prepared."

Romana laughed uncomfortably. "You must be joking. Everyone I've ever met says regeneration is a doddle. In fact, it's all but instinctual. All you're doing is changing your appearance!"

"You're changing a good deal more than that," the Doctor muttered. He set down his pen, then turned his chair to face her. "You've never read the work of the Lord Physician of the Panopticon, have you? Not the current one," he amended. "Or the one before him. The one before him."

Romana frowned and shook her head. She wasn't sure where the Doctor was going with this.

"Ah. Before your time, I suppose." The Doctor leaned back in his chair. "He was an expert in regenerative trauma. And for reasons I never quite understood, shortly before his final death he chose to give me a rather memorable lecture on it while I was recovering from a rather traumatic regeneration of my own."

"Oh," said Romana.

The Doctor shrugged. "Some things stick with you. Do you know why the Rassilon imprimatur is encoded to ensure geriatric regeneration failure on the thirteenth go-round?"

"Fear of overpopulation?" Romana guessed. "Not wanting us to do it every day? Or did Rassilon just want to be the only true immortal in Time Lord society?"

"No," said the Doctor. "Well, yes, actually, but that wasn't the main reason. The main reason was that the more times you regenerate the more likely it is that something will go terribly wrong." He took another picture from the stack. "Here—see what I mean?"

Romana glanced down at the paper and winced. "I don't want to know what's in her handbag, do I?"

"Probably not." The Doctor passed her another paper. "Look at this one. The Lord Physician referred to it as a teratomatic regeneration failure."

"... please tell me I'm not staring at a giant eyeball in a robe."

"You're not staring at a giant eyeball in a robe. Especially not one with a fetching head of curly blond hair."

"You're _lying_."

"You asked me to."

"Yes. Well. I suppose this would be a bad time to mention that I contracted a tricky case of radiation poisoning while we were visiting that abandoned city in the Ukraine yesterday."

The Doctor stared at her.

"I know, I know. That's what we had the pills for. I... well, I dropped mine. From the top of the Ferris Wheel."

"My dear Romana..."

"You were the one who insisted we spend the afternoon there! Such a pity, you said. A brand new amusement park that no one would ever visit."

"Romana, I'm so sorry—"

"Don't be. I should have said something then. I thought I could try expelling it once we got back to the TARDIS, but I couldn't get it all and I ruined my new shoes. I decided to be patient and wait it out until I'd metabolized it enough to trigger the regeneration, but then I got bored and went looking for _you_ and, and—"

His large hands were warm around her small one. "Romana," he said quietly. "It'll be all right. You're young—"

"Doctor," she whispered, "I've never regenerated before."

"—very young, then, and the first ones are always the easiest. Well, unless you've got a slight genetic defect that makes regeneration difficult at all ages, but—"

"Doctor," she said. "That's _not_ helping."

"—but that's very rare and I think they managed to eliminate it for your generation. And even with the defect you can manage to regenerate more or less normally, if you don't mind not being able to control what you regenerate into. But I've always thought that the fun was in the element of surprise."

Romana was very still. Her skin had taken on a faint glow. "Doctor," she said. "What happened to the teratomatic regeneration failure?"

"Ah. That." The Doctor stood up. "The Lord Physician tried triggering another regeneration to fix it."

"And?"

"And he had a giant eyeball in a robe with a fetching head of ginger hair. _But that's not the point_." He tugged on Romana's arm. "There's a camp bed set up in the wardrobe room. You can lie down there and let nature take its course. There's really nothing for you to worry about."

"Except for becoming a giant eyeball."

"You won't. And even if you did, you'd be a very pretty one."

"I think that might be the nicest thing you've said to me."

"Really? I'll try to be better to the next you. Just take a deep breath. You're going to be fine."

"All right."

"And don't worry if your clothing regenerates too. That's normal."

**Author's Note:**

> For those who are interested, Four and Romana were visiting the [Pripyat Funfair](http://villageofjoy.com/chernobyl-today-a-creepy-story-told-in-pictures/) circa 1987.
> 
> (There should be an illustration of The Man In Flux at the end of the fic, but if not click [here](http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/3941/maninflux.gif) to see him.)


End file.
